Chaste
by Zerabell Blackborn
Summary: While incompetence brought her to St. Louis, it was Willow's own stubborn curiosity and their passive aggressive defiance that kept things interesting. Few things managed to hold her attention outside The Academy; they were all about to get lucky. BtVS/AB


**Summery**: While incompetence brought her to St. Louis, it was her own stubborn curiosity and their passive aggressive defiance that kept things interesting. Very few things managed to hold her attention outside The Academy; they were all about to get lucky. Crossover story with Anita Blake: Vampire Hutner. Willow-centric; Willow/Nathaniel; Willow/Pard.

**Answering Challenges**: 570 (Obsession by filemate) and 4842 (Superiority Complex by Alas) from _Twisting the Hellmouth_. Entries part of LiveJournal's 365_drabbles; each drabble 100-500 words.

**Disclaimer**: I have no legal rights to _Buffy: The Vampire Slayer_ or _Angel_ the series, as it is the recognizable brain-childe of Joss Whedon. Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton and will likely never be bought.

_**Please heed the rating: FR21/Mature**_; angst, romance, with some adventure spliced in for fun. And sex. Because Miss Willow's kitties are delectable. Touches on same-sex relationships, both female and male. BDSM, blood play, strippers, alcohol and swearing. Witchcraft, vampirism, shapeshifters and polytheism. Kissing, hugging, old friends, new strangers and handshakes. Don't say I didn't warn you.

**A Note on AUing**: Post 7.22 "Chosen" (ignores 'Season Eight' and pretends _Angel_ ended at 4.22 "Home"), just before Hamilton's Burnt Offerings.

* * *

Prologue

When Wolfram & Heart proceeded with their diabolical scheme and Addison V. Clarke splashed airwaves, classified _Project: Initiative_ was pulled from dusty shelves and used in debriefing the president. In a bid to keep peace, meet justice, and secure notoriety he did the only logical thing: consult the source. With the rebuilt Watchers' Guild, their army of slayers, and the experience of apocalypse-stopping Scoobies they came up with an outline to suppress the chaos and rewrite safety protocol throughout the US.

Opportunistic enough to see the benefits, the American branch of Watchers manages to slip behind the scenes and write themselves into a supernatural treaty that changes the world. And while there are situational provisos, it all boils down to one beautiful concept: Diplomatic Immunity.

* * *

001

_It started with her eyes, cold and cruel and beautiful. One look had his body taunt, needy with the fear and promise found within them. His skin burned hot and the anticipation brought submission sweetly to the forefront of his being. Heart quick and breath shallow he had lowered his eyes, bared his neck. Begged. _

He is before her now, eyes to shoulders naked in sunlight. Muscles dance and she walks forward. To_ him. _Excitement coils, increasing the heat and the absolute need. He stands still, he had been walking he thinks, going somewhere. Now he couldn't, couldn't continue in the direction towards her. Not without approval. And oh god, he wants her acknowledgement.

He follows the line of her arm, down, down. He could almost feel that creamy skin against his own, the texture of it on his tongue. He wants to lick and nibble and savor. He wants to taste. When she turns, a graceful line of ribbon folding in wind, he catches the sharpness of her elbow and he wants that on him as well. Digging into him, a punishment of continuous pressure.

She is closer. Her scent, oh god, it has him vibrating. Growling. Purring. It has him whimpering. She laughs, low and soft. Teasing. It finds him and he is further pushed with desire, with fantasy of the two of them in a room alone- no, no. On display. Around his wrists he can feel the phantom sting of silver as it bit into flesh, the ache in his arms held just so as they stretch behind him.

002

_He had been ordered still and his restraints had deliciously pulled him upwards despite gravity. She circled him slowly as he hung in the middle of the room. He had been reminded of a kennel, of a pet store where a litter of defenseless creatures awaited ownership. Her touch was cool on his skin, experimental as she moved this way and that. He had trembled then, just a little, a twitch of skin too fast and small for human eyes to catch. He wanted to be claimed and his body had too much energy to remain still while he mentally pleaded for her. _

_She forced his chin up, and her deceptively frail fingers had close to bruising strength. She had been graceful, swaying to the subharmonics leaking into their area from behind closed doors. Pressing closer her nose bumped his ear and he had felt her cheek soft and slightly rounded against his own._

_There was power. It had washed over him with a wave of fire, burning and searing and making him cold when it dissipated. His skin had stretched, constricted, and his beast had panted for more. It wasn't like the call to change, that power that pulsed through him at their initial contact. No, not quite, but it was commanding and natural and wickedly unfamiliar. Gentle for all its force, solid for all that it weaved through and around him and his beast. Questing, questioning; demanding all the same._

"_Hello, pretty."_

003

He knows what her hands feel like, sure strokes of that wonderful skin. Petting. Down his back and arms, down his chest, up to his neck and against his cheek. A reward. Gentle contact and tantalizing cool against fevered skin that would echo in bittersweet memory when she went to trail fingernails down, down. Scratching the protrusion of his adam's apple, dragging heavily across the left nipple, marking him with a red line to right hipbone.

The idea of her heated words against his ear had him swallowing and he can just make out something metal, cold and smooth, as it traces his spine. She would bring it to his nape, feather light, and roll it on overheated skin just beneath the collar she will give him. Oh how he could almost feel it, how he wants –needs– it to be her, yet she stood before him.

There, she was right _there_, some distance away. Too far for touch, for her to physically affect him. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. He tries to capture her scent again, pushes out everything else. He tries, tries. Knows failure.

She is talking to another, dancing still and now instead he tries to listen for the music that carries her in this open space. Her companion is shorter, smaller, duller in colors meant to trap the sun despite the heat of summer. The conversation between the two wavers and they both turn and look at him.

004

_Her voice was deeper than expected. Fuller. The power he had only glimpsed hid within her words. "You have been given as sacrifice, kitten. I will not ask if you want to play. You will. I ask only if you want pleasure with your pain."_

_She had frightened him then, and there was something were within her that must have smelled it on him. The smile she had given him matched the cruelty of her eyes upon first meeting. Cold calculation. In the fear was desire however, and she appeared pleased with the combination. The fingers holding his chin pulled away, there was the feel of air and shifter healing. Knuckles slowly play –_played–_ along his jaw, chin to ear and back again. _

_Petting, she was petting with one hand and the other? Oh, the other. Her nails were short, with just enough presence to scratch his skin with a little pressure. She rested at his jugular notch, for just a moment, and when that pressure built his body responded as cleaver fingers dug enough to draw blood. _

_That pleased her more._

005

Her companion wears perfume, it is overpowering her soap and detergent, hides her shampoo and deodorant. He is unable to distinguish the natural scent beneath the layers of chemicals manmade. His beast is weary of the female, untrusting in the way she exists unidentifiably. She looks like any other and he recognizes camouflage when it's presented. There is the faint impression of sulfur, charcoal.

Human hands hold human weapons.

He guesses it to be gunpowder but can find no hint of the metal or gas or oil of a side arm.

Sharp beeping draws their attention and painted nails flash as a cell phone is pulled out. When the companion turns away, to talk with someone who doesn't matter, he can see the frown on sweet lips and wonders why wicked tongue hides. He can see the disappointment.

It gives him hope.

Something brushes against his arm.

006

_He could smell the apples she must have eaten before entering their room, kiwi and pomegranate and lemon. Dark chocolate. Her lips to his, she tested, teased and when he responded the drop of blood became a line. He exhaled with a sound she is able to read and her laughter was for him._

"_Pleasure with pain is it."_

_She presses _-pressed- _presses her body into his. Her chin against his left shoulder as if to mark him with her scent. It was feline and the beast within violently, enthusiastically reacted. It wants to nip and bite and be bitten, to be scratched and _touched. _They would both have her mark his body with more than her scent. Scoring nail moves down, up, circles. She carves a pattern in his skin and the automatic healing, the warmth and tingle, is just as sublime. _

_The hand that was petting moves to his back, tongue and teeth and lips take its spot. If he had been worried about the chance of infection, a fleeing thought that has been pushed away with pleasure, it died as her teeth take to his neck. _

_Head back he purrs –growled– asks for more. Sharp enough. Dull enough. She separates the layer of skin from muscle, worried it, nips and sucks. The hand at his back switched to cut, the hand on his chest grows gentle and she stops _–stopped, _oh god she_ stopped–_ just short of drawing blood to her mouth._

_And he thought he understood the appeal of vampires through this act._

007

He realizes the position his subconscious placed his body at the sight of her. Hands firmly at the small of his back, legs shoulders' width apart, and his head now tilts at just the right angle. Submission. He knows he has to do something, anything, to ground him to the scene before him. In reality. Salt and copper explode in his mouth as soft tissue is brutally sliced through with his teeth.

It helps, enough for him to become aware of the street. Of the people. Of the heat of summer and the small breeze. Enough for him to watch as his Mistress, for he was hers once and she will be his again, is enfolded into the arms of her un-natural companion. And he watches as she is given and gives a kiss farewell.

It's wrong, so wrong he hurts and the healing skin of his mouth is broken again with the pain this causes. Again. Always again, because he seeks her out when he can, and it is his beast that cautions temperance, whispers of games and patience. They have known their share of addictions; as the man, as the beast. This is not just another, it is all of them, and it is all consuming.

|tbc|

* * *

**A Note on Updating**: Each chapter will have (1) at least seven drabbles or (2) 1500 words, so please expect at least a week between updates. As this is part of LJ's 365 Drabble (A Day) challenge, and being used as a Muse-pick-me-up, those updates will probably be closer to two/three(and a half) weeks apart.

**Drabble Count:** Prologue-007 = 008.


End file.
